Nigel Davies: The Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack

6/11/2012 – Openings are king again this month's Chess Cafe reviews, with two trainers on openings, and one middlegame strategy trainer on diagonals and files. The first is Nigel Davies' Nimzowitsch-Larsen Attack which, according to reviewer Steven Dowd is "for any player who wants to try an opening where plans and ideas trump memorized lines." He calls it 'a phenomenal trainer'.

Andrew
Martin: The Open Ruy Lopez

Review by Steven B. Dowd

Whenever you see the name Nigel Davies attached to a chess product these days,
you can expect a high level of quality on all fronts. In the case of a trainer
that means objective, "just deep enough" analysis; an emphasis on
ideas, and a good presentation style. Every Davies trainer I have reviewed has
met these standards, and this is no exception.

Davies calls the line 1.Nf3, followed by 2.b3, the Nimzowitsch Attack; and
1.b3 the Larsen Opening. He notes that the opening complex has been "rather
neglected by the theoreticians." I would believe that is because it is
the type of opening that is hard to pin down in terms of "lines,"
but it is well-used by players who want to innovate. Larsen himself called it,
as I remember from the pages of his column in Chess Life in the 1970s,
the "Baby Orang-Utan."

This is an opening that is used both by attacking players (Ljubojevic, Planinc,
Minasian, and Fischer) and positional players (Petrosian, Taimanov, and Bagirov),
and it is a fun opening to play.

Davies shows the pluses and minuses for both sides here. It is not one of those
"snake-oil" trainers where the presenter does his best to convince
you that the opening is great by showing only victories for one side. I've always
believed that the best approach for Black, if he wants to win, is to adopt the
classic approach of occupying the center with pawns on the dark squares. However,
after viewing Davies' commentary, this sort of approach, which does nothing
to contest White's dark-square control, must be wrong:

And those are just a few ideas he presents with that very instructive game.
Here is one of his own, a victory for the black side, where White tries to play
hyper-aggressively. He provides extensive analysis of alternate lines here for
White and Black. I give only brief annotations directly related to the game.

And that is just a smattering of the rich fare Davies provides. For any player
who has reached the level where they have a basic positional understanding,
and wants to try an opening where plans and ideas trump memorized lines, this
is a phenomenal trainer.

See also

9/26/2017 – The final classical game. The finals has been relatively sedate with three draws until now. But it could all end today with one decisive game. Ding Liren has the black pieces today. It's going to be an exciting game. Games kick off at 13:00 CEST (7:00 AM EST) with live commentary from Tbilisi by GMs Evgeny Miroshnichenko and WGM Keti Tsatsalashvili and live updates by our reporters Sagar Shah and Amruta Mokal.

See also

7/5/2017 – This is neither prank nor clever wording: Garry Kasparov will be playing in the official St. Louis leg of the Grand Chess Tour from August 14-19, 2017. Please note that this is the Rapid and Blitz competition, just as the ones held in Paris and Levuen these last weeks, and not the classical events. However, this is not an exhibition event, and will determine the official Grand Chess Tour rankings as well as FIDE ratings of the players. Here is the press release.

Video

Tired of spending hours and hours on the boring theory of your favourite opening? Then here is your solution, play an Anti-Sicilian with 3.Bb5 against 2...d6 or 2...Nc6, and 3.d3 against 2...e6. In 60 minutes you will get a crash course in how to avoid mainstream theory and in understanding the ideas of this Anti-Sicilian setup. After these 60 minutes you should be able to survive the Sicilian for a long time, without being bothered by new developments found by engine x supported by an x-core machine. Now that it finally comes down to understanding, let's play chess!